As most of you know, I left America to start a new life chapter in Italy. I grew up on the coast of California and was transplanted to rural Arkansas. I’m here to set the record straight, and to bust some myths about my “marvelous life in Tuscany.” I’ll start immediately with explaining that I had to get rid of an entire household full of items, instruments, bikes, furniture, and sell my already paid off car. I had so much stuff that I had accumulated from my life in Arkansas. So when we came over to Italy we had somewhat of a little cushion from everything we sold. Roughly around $13,000. I’ll never forget in the midst of eloping and finalizing decisions that we would move to Italy, which is where my husband grew up, we were at Walmart one night, and we ran into a well known chef in town. I was holding ramen noodles, sriracha, and a case of light beers. This guy looks at the items in my arms, and he says “Well now that you’ve married a McGehee, you could actually afford to eat good food!” I just stood there speechless for two reasons, one is that there is NOTHING wrong with ramen noodles, I’m a latchkey kid, I was raised on ramen! And second, I married the least wealthy McGehee, in fact my salary at that point more than doubled his. My husband’s cousin is also a very successful chef in Little Rock, which I bet this fellow chef was hinting that we could go eat at one of our cousin’s trendy delicious restaurants spread throughout our town. Either way, I realized the stereotyping had begun. 

Do you have to be rich to move to Italy?

No, compared to America the rent is affordable. At least it was 10 years ago when I first arrived.  You DO have to know how to find some side hustles work-wise until you can find something that works for you. Don’t expect to come here and automatically get your dream job, wrong place! You must make yourself an exotic, essential, exclusive asset. But also be willing to get your hands dirty picking olives, grapes, and apples during harvest seasons. Don’t come here thinking you are above certain jobs, you will be served a piece of humble pie really quickly if you come thinking you are too big for your britches. In my early years I remember switching hats daily, teaching English, doing rentals, doing bodywork, tourism work, modeling, performance art, house sitting, high school tutoring, English translating, yoga, styling for photoshoots/videos and picking olives and grapes. You have to be willing to do whatever you can to get your bills paid, IT DOES NOT WORK LIKE IN AMERICA. Also you will receive shit pay, and sometimes you will wait for months or even years before even seeing a payment, even if you have poured your soul into the project. In some cases, I never even received a payment for a job that I completed, even if the name is a well known name like Ferragamo. This myth that you can just “figure it out when you get there” is a mentality you need to shake off if you want to move to Italy. Americans have been accustomed to go work for their competitors or that there are a million other jobs out there, because we live in the land of great opportunities. Well the American dream ends exactly there, America. Also work in Italy can also be totally seasonal so when the iron is hot you’d better strike and never turn down work, you never know when you will have a dry spell and you will eventually hit a dry spell. 

One morning, a friend of mine’s father was out walking his dog, it was almost 7 in the morning. He asked if I was just getting home from a long night out, I told him no, that I was on my way to hitch a ride to the countryside to harvest olives for cash. He is a retired head of military police, very fit, sharp features, trendy glasses, and no nonsense kind of attitude. He has two daughters that are around my age, back then they were living at home and now 10 years later, the oldest still lives at home. He was shocked that I would wake up before dawn in mid October, especially to go do physical labor work. He expressed to me that work is really important, not like these other young kids that sleep through the morning and are lazy, referring to his daughters. I reminded him that in America, this work ethic is ingrained into us. He also couldn’t believe that I was married. I was 27 at the time, in Italy this is considered too young. In America I knew friends that were already on husband number two with child number three. Two completely different worlds. I was off that misty morning to work through lunch and most of the afternoon. It was nearing dusk, there was just enough light to see the silhouette of our large Cathedral, the Duomo. I thanked my driver for my ride and headed up the steep hills towards home. And I saw my friend’s dad again with his dog, he asked me how I liked it, and if I was tired. He was tickled that we had run into each other in the exact same spot as we did that morning. I told him I was exhausted but I needed to get home to shower because I had to teach two classes and give a massage before my day was done. His eyebrows went up and his eyes widened and he said “brava Americana!” He was in total awe that my work day was far from done. I still see him on occasion and I know he gives his daughters a hard time because they do the bare minimum in his eyes. But to be fair, our little town of Arezzo is hard to find reliable work that pays well. I see both sides of the coin. Except my husband and I didn’t live with our parents. In Italy you live at home with your parents, forever. You move your new family in with them. Different world. 

Rent here can range from €380 for a studio apartment up to €500 a month not including utilities. And you can find a modest house with the amenities you need to live a simple little life. Of course you can find bigger apartments ranging from €600-€800 but most likely you are overpaying and it will be expensive to upkeep a large expensive house. We live very modestly. 

If you are American, you will get special treatment… 

I have been on both sides of the fence when it comes to this statement. Most Americans have this mentality that if you flash your passport that you will get this “red carpet” treatment. If anything, when you try to rent a house or car, your price is three times the asking price. I once called a car rental place during what is considered “dead season”. I asked how much it would cost to rent a car over Christmas for four days. The person at the other end of the line obviously heard my accent and told me all of the required documents necessary to rent the car and that it would be €200 a day for the car. I thanked her and hung up. I made Sam, my husband, call back immediately and ask for a quote. He speaks like a native, if anything he has a Tuscan accent. When he called the same company and spoke in perfect Italian, they let him have the car for €50 a day. I was pissed. Sam went on to explain to me that they are just trying to survive and that tourism is a big money maker for the Italian people. But Americans don’t bat an eye at prices like that, most likely they aren’t doing the currency conversion. I was also wrestling with the fact I was no longer receiving these nice American paychecks so I was counting coins to make ends meet.

Sometimes I would get special treatment, because a lot of people want an “American friend” or at least that was the case 10 years ago. Now with the help of social media, Europe and the rest of the world is slowly being desensitized to America being this great place to make it. Once I had a friend visiting from Arkansas and we were overlooking these bluffs in Cinque Terre. And a man heard us speaking in English and enjoying the sunset. He approached us and asked if we were Americans and we said yes. And we asked him some detailed questions about his town.. He didn’t have an answer and he wasn’t used to Americans asking such things. He walked off quickly but shortly after returned with two bottles of white wine, a gift to us for taking interest in his hometown and for stumping him with a question that he, as a local, could not answer. He owned the winery of the town and had a restaurant. A separate occasion, again in Cinque Terre, a town over with a different friend, we were enjoying the beach and having a conversation about how awesome it would have been to have grown up here and not Arkansas. A man overhears us and insists on taking us to his private island. It was the coolest place that no other tourists had access to. It was used as a hidden bunker to house soldiers to snipe out the Nazis during the second World War. He kept insisting to treat us to dinner and that we could come back any time and use his little island whenever we pleased. He simply wanted to make friends with Americans that frequented Italy. 

After taking a leap of faith and moving out of Arezzo, to a bigger city in Tuscany, I chose Florence, perhaps the most important city during the Renaissance period. I managed to find a wonderful group of girls that were also transplants from Hawaii, Brazil, France, America, and Canada. We all lived in the Santo Spirito neighborhood. We lived together, we worked together and it seemed like we spent every waking moment together. We really cared a lot for each other and we came from extremely different places on the planet. We all brought our own talents to the table and I can honestly say that we really loved each other. We would speak in a nice mix of Italian, English, Spanish, French and Portuguese. Our usual hang out was on the steps of the church in piazza Santo Spirito, we would laugh, dance and have the best conversations. We were often approached by other groups and they would ask us “ Where are you guys from?!” we would answer “ We are from here.. Why? What do you mean? We live here!” and they would just say “no no but WHERE are you from?” We were an ethnically ambiguous looking group that could switch languages and had our own language amongst ourselves. I would just say “We are from the world!” Of course all of these responses were prosecco induced. One day, another local restaurant owner stepped out of his restaurant to get some air, the girl squad and I were on our way to meet at the steps. I stopped because the man took a nosedive and started having a seizure. I ran to him and sat him up, he had nicked his ear pretty bad when he hit the edge of the sidewalk.. I sat with him and I called 118, (our version of 911) I told the woman on the other end of the phone that I needed an ambulance and fast, there was a man turning blue that was not breathing and I told her roughly where we were, a side street of Santo Spirito by the man’s wine bar. She asked me for the EXACT street name, and I told her that I didn’t know and I didn’t want to leave the man. I looked around for help and realized the woman dispatcher had hung up on me! I was trying to talk to the man, and assuring him that everything was going to be okay. When one of my girls appears on her bike. I urged her to call 118 because the woman didn’t understand me and hung up on me because I wouldn’t give her a street sign. My friend calls, she is explaining the situation while walking ahead to get an actual street name, she walks back towards us and starts asking the man questions and trying to get details of what exactly happened. At a certain point I hear her say, “ Um I’m Italian, why does it matter where I’m from, the man that is dying is Italian!”. My friend’s mother is Italian and her father is American. She could speak both languages with no problem. The dispatcher heard us communicating in English and decided to hang up on her too! We were both in shock, and another Italian bystander called an ambulance. So what seemed like an eternity, finally we saw two ambulances approach on opposite sides of the street but perpendicular from each other. The EMTs got out of the ambulance and instead of rushing to aid the injured man, they began arguing with each other as to whose jurisdiction it was for the street the man was on, as in whose responsibility it was to handle the situation. It was the most absurd thing to witness, in America if two ambulances would have shown up EVERYBODY would have rushed over to help, and they would have sent at least one fire truck and a few police cars for good measure. Did it have to do with the fact that the people calling for aid were foreigners? Are they really the more relaxed species of Europe? I don’t know, I just know I was fuming because they hung up on me and asked my friend where she was from. We were all pretty upset that night due to the irrational attitude of hostility towards us for not being “Italian”.  

You must be up to date with the latest fashion … 

I have not bought any piece of clothing for full price in over 10 years. I’m still rocking jeans that I wore in 2004. (Hear me out! A good pair of denim will last a long time!) A nice perk about living abroad is that you meet all of the other expatriates, some are only here temporarily and leave a lot of stuff behind that you get to inherit. Also my husband and I work at university abroad programs in Arezzo and Florence. Most students pack too many things and end up buying loads of clothing that they can not take back home, so another jackpot. I get to pick through the things that these students leave behind every semester. There are also great stalls at the Saturday morning markets that have €1 and €2 tables and I have found great deals on Levi’s, Lacoste, Patagonia and every brand name imaginable for just coins! If you get really savvy you can re-sell the clothing at our monthly outrageously expensive antique fair. I once paid for five pairs of Levi’s jeans €5 and resold them for 20 bucks a piece! Cha-ching! Work smarter, not harder! There are also little shops around town that sell used items and the proceeds will either go to a charity like the animal shelter or a children with cancer association. They also have things for under €5, I once found a mustard yellow vintage Prada dress for €3. I love a good deal and now that I know I don’t have to pay full price for anything again, I refuse to! Except of course, socks and underwear, but you can normally find great brands at discount grocery stores or wait until Italian’s version of “black friday” called “la notte bianca” and it’s where all the shops stay open all night with mad discounts on everything. Good time to stock up on undergarments. When I started having kids, all of my neighbors brought over boxes labeled by age. We were in the right neighborhood, every family in the town had boys. There were only two girls in the whole town both around the same age and both named Alice. The “Meliciano maschi” (male) curse, I guess I was there long enough to consume the water and carry on the tradition. So I have never had to buy clothing for my children. All of it is top of the line, name brand too, my kids have Burberry London feathered down jackets with fur on the hood! Their stuff is more expensive than mine!!! 

Stay tuned next week when I cover topics such as table culture, laundry, and what a rustic Italian country house actually means…